BULBUL'S CONFLICT
Bulbul is a
writer.
On Day 1 she
is working on a project in which she has to write a short article for a fashion
magazine.
In addition to doing the relevant research required for the article, what she did was to browse through a wordboard she has created for fashion-related words she would use in the article.
On Day 2
she is writing a children’s short story for an education brand.
Again she flips through her folders to take a sneak peak into a wordboard she has created for words related to ‘writing for children’…and another she created for words related to her short story’s setting.
On Day 3, however,
she is beginning to work on a longform book on the topic of ‘botanicals’.
In order to do some research for this writing project, she has to collect data from various places such as by visiting a botanicals lab, taking tour inside a botany museum, meeting a botany professor, chatting with some botanical farm owners, and making notes from some thick-rimmed encyclopedias and books in the city library.
Now, unlike the fashion wordboards or the children’s writing wordboards, she can’t create or refer to, just one wordboard in this case.
Here there’s a large amount of data/words; which is too overwhelming to be organized into merely one or even two-three-four wordboards.
So, now Bulbul
is sitting on her writing desk, wondering about how to resolve this critical
issue.
After breezing
through a variety of layouts & pondering over several ideas, she comes
across a solution.
OVERVIEW
In the last video show, I discussed the idea of creating ‘Visual Wordboards’ as a functional and handy tool for your writing practice.
A ‘visual wordboard’ is literally ‘a board of words’.
While it is easier to create a wordboard for narrower topics, but for some other topics which are relatively broader, just one wordboard might turn out to be too overwhelming to decipher and to look back on, in the near future.
For example, if you’re creating a wordboard for a specific short story that you’re working on, then a wordboard might turn out to be a great tool in terms of jotting down the plotline or a setting or a character sketch. Or, obviously it is a great way to record an idea you have for a blog or article, in a snapshot.
However, if you’d like to create a wordboard for a series of short stories, or for a novel, or for the purpose of note-taking from your reading of a book, then it is quite probable that one wordboard might not be as effective a tool as it is, in case of a relatively narrower topic such as an article.
In such a case, creating a wordboard would be an ineffective way to arrange the words pertaining to your broad topic.
Rather, here, you may require to create a set of wordboards.
Or a Wordbook!
Henceforth, in this video show, you’ll learn about what a ‘Wordbook’ is; what are the various types & possibilities for a wordbook; and how to create one for your own writing practice.
Without further ado, let’s get straight into the topic!WHAT IS A WORDBOOK?
A wordbook is a set of wordboards or a collection of word lists; arranged and organized in a mini-book or mini-journal format for all words/phrases related to a specific topic.
You may also like to look at a wordbook as a variation of the ‘swipe files’ used by copywriters, or the ‘language phrasebooks’ used by travellers, or all these ‘glossaries’ used by niche content writers.
The only difference here is that, firstly, a wordbook is more specific to containing short-form collections such as words and/or phrases; than other longform-style collections such as paragraphs, passages, blog posts or many books.
SEVENTEEN MAJOR TYPES OF WORDBOOK EXAMPLES FOR WRITERS
There can be as many possibilities of a wordbook as your imagination can shape!
Here are the seventeen examples of the most common types of wordbooks that you can create for your writing practice!
#1 A General or Vocabulary Style Wordbook
All the new words jotted down plainly or with their meanings in a jotbook, notebook, listbook, file, document or folder.
#2 A Thesaurus–style Wordbook
Containing Synonyms & Antonyms
#3 A Wordbook of Rhyming Words
#4 A Wordbook of Phrases, Idioms &
Proverbs etc.
#5 A Wordbook of Palindrome Words
#6 A Wordbook of Adjectives & Descriptive Words/Phrases
Words to Use for some (topic)
#7 A List-style Wordbook
Based
a list of words/phrases
#8 A Wordbook of a Niche-based Glossary
of Words or a Topic-based Encyclopedia of Words
#9 A Wordbook of Names & Types of
Things
#10
Language
Based Wordbook/Phrasebook
#11
A
Wordbook of Words & Phrases from Books, Songs, Movies & other snippets
likewise.
#12 A Wordbook containing a Collection of a Variety of Wordboards
such as
- Wordboards
from reading of books
- Wordboards
from Stream of Consciousness Word Lists
- Wordboards
from a list of something
[Read more
about wordboards in this video]
#13
A
Wordbook of Writing Prompts
#14
A
Wordbook of Concepts, Devices, Tools & Ideas
Short
Story Titles/Ideas that pop up in your head
Character
names ideas you have
#15
A
Wordbook of Made-up Words
#16
Wordbooks
based on a Word Form or many of the Word Formations
Palindromes,
nouns, pronouns, adverbs, interjections, etc.
#17
A
Longform-style Wordbook/Phrasebook of Writing Styles
Styles you like to note that you come across while reading something, anything
Narrative, descriptive, persuasive, etc.
HOW TO CREATE YOUR FIRST WORDBOOK AS A WRITER?
#1 Narrow down the topic for your first
wordbook to as much precision and specificness as possible.
#2 Curate your collection of
words/phrases that you’d like to include in your wordbook.
#3 Select an arrangement & layout
for all the words/phrases in your collection. Whether you’d like to arrange the
words in a random order, or category-wise. If you select the category-style
layout, then jot down some categories for organizing the words/phrases.
#4 Start jotting down the words/phrases
in your notebook, or arrange them in a visual book format using some or the
other design tool available.
#5 Print out the wordbook or store it
in your computer as a PDF.
#6 Create as many wordbooks as you like, on the topics you require and need.
#7 Take the wordbooks out and flip through them when writing on a particular topic!
Thank you, Good day & Keep Writing!
And, remember to subscribe to Neha's Notebook for more exciting videos!
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